Prep for a Book Sale and a Burrito Review

I'm going to be starting an early Black Friday sale as early as this weekend in an attempt to boost sales of Sex Robot. I need lower prices, especially on the ebook front, in order to acquire more reviews, get more word of mouth happening, and so on. The print version price will be a little trickier, as of course there are far more substantial costs involved from the printers. The margins are especially thin at Barnes & Noble, and I'll simply have to leave it at a higher price there in order to receive at least some profit from sales. I'm certainly not going to take a loss on it.

In preparation, I've revamped the main page of my website after a writing friend introduced me to Canva and walked me through some of the processes. I'm happy to say that this part of my site no longer looks like it was designed in 2010. I'm quite pleased with the results from my first Canva project!

I'll probably use that clip for one of my ads, adding another frame to the end of it with a link to Amazon. This week I'm going to try and create a couple more ad clips in preparation. I got a heck of a lotta views and clicks with simple image-only ads, and I'm sure the animated ones will make the results even better. And now with lower prices, I hope this will mean far more sales than I've secured in these first two months.

It's true what self-publishers say about this route - it's a lot of work, sometimes even more so than the act of writing itself. But I'm learning along the way, getting more efficient and all that. If I self-pub again, it'll be so much easier now. As for writing, all I've done since the launch was write a flash piece for a forum contest. I placed 4th out of the 20 stories submitted. Would've preferred a podium finish, but I'll take it as it was a tough field. And I'm still submitting - two short story submissions last night, and this afternoon I added six agent queries and an indie pub submission.

That's right. It's burrito time.

I ordered from my favorite burrito place the other day - Mucho Burrito. They're simply the best. HUGE burritos, good value, and very fresh and delicious ingredients. I've never received a bad order from them, ever (no, I don't work for them. I just love their food). It had been a couple of months since my last order, and I noticed their menu changed a little since then. Their vegetarian protein base "veggie crumble" has been replaced by "shiitake carnitas."

I've never enjoyed mushrooms. I think they're nasty, slimy, flavorless trash. However, the way these fake BBQ mushrooms were prepared, you'd never know the truth. I haven't had BBQ pulled pork for probably 20+ years, but I swear it's pretty much like the real thing. It's almost too real. It looks like pork, tastes like it, and the texture is a bit alarming. I prefer my fake meats to be a little more fake so I know that I'm not really eating meat. Or say, more processed kinds of meats, like veggie dogs and the Impossible Whopper. Doesn't feel like you're eating flesh, whereas with the shiitake carnitas, it kind of does!

So with that in mind, I'm still a little surprised that I've got to rate this a 3.5/5. It's a little too real, to the point that it's somewhat off-putting. It's delicious, though! Now, would I order burritos in the future with this shiitake carnitas included, or would I prefer a regular vegetarian burrito with no protein base, which I know would be a reliable 5/5? Seems like an obvious choice, but part of me wonders if I ate a few more with the fake mushroom pork, that I might get used to it and get over the "ick." Maybe next time I'll get one with, and one without.

And lastly, we got our first lil ole snowstorm today in Ottawa. I doubt it'll be long before it melts as this feels like a clear sign of False Winter. As you can see, all the leaves haven't even fallen yet. I love winter. As a Finnish-Canadian, I have the +50% Frost Resistance buff (though it comes with -50% Heat Resistance), so I don't mind the cold much. It's nice to open the window for a minute and get a blast of refreshing, cold air.

Til next time. I'll be sure to carpet bomb social media with my book sale nonsense soon enough. Just a bit more work to do first.